--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Jordan, William George collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 3 published: 1911-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'William George Jordan, "The Crown of Individuality. XIII," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 3 (January 1911): 248–252.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1403unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1403unse start_page: 248 end_page: 252 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1403unse publication_year: 1911 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Crown of Individuality. XIII The Crown of Individuality. BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN. XIII. — The Optimism that Really Counts. Optimism is the sunshine of the soul radiated in action. It is true religion as a living, compelling fact — not a mere theory. It is sturdy confidence that right must triumph — united to tireless courage to make it triumph. Optimism is the finest weapon in the armory of the individual. It unifies all the aggressive, undaunted virtues of his strength into a force and an inspiration. It means fighting for, or with, the battalions of right, love, justice and truth — with determination to win. True optimism is something more than a continuous performance of hope. It is the joy of living — made an actual fact. It means seeking the best, living the best, doing the best. It means focusing all that is highest in our character to meet conditions. Merely thinking, hoping and trusting that somehow, somewhere, somewhen, things will come out right, while we do nothing to make them come out right, is sunstruck folly — not optimism. It is a hammock philosophy for a sultry day, when you are too drowsy to think and really do not care what whimsey of non-thinking plays games in your mind. No farmer outside of the pages of The Arabian Nights would expect nature alone to seed and fertilize and plow his fields and then to harvest his crops and put them in his barns without any human help whatever but his thinking. The exaggerated belief in the superhuman effect of thought as a direct power is — the folly of many. * From The Crown of Individuality. Copyright, 1909, by Fleming H. Re veil Company. THE CROWN OF INDIVIDUALITY. 249 This truly comfortable restfulness is merely a perfumed hotair sentimentality. It dulls moral energy and deadens purpose. It is opiatism — not optimism. It is only mental or moral laziness, wearing a rainbow robe of beautiful confidence. It may give a temporary fictitious strength to character, but is ever revealed as weakness — in a crisis. It is only a papier-mache shield— punctured in the first battle with the stern realities of life. There is a light, jaunty, bubbling, care-free humor that takes the low fences of petty worries — neatly, gracefully. It smiles nonchalantly because it has never seen real trouble. This lightweight philosophy usually wilts at the first touch of real sorrow, grief and loss, like a straw hat meeting a sudden rain-storm. This is a sort of kindergarten optimism that sees only the sun — untouched by clouds. Real optimism knows the sun is ever shining—despite the dark, heavy clouds that may obscure it. It knows that darkness is ever the herald and messenger of dawn — the new illumination and inspiration that must come. True optimism seeks to live in the broad sunlight — when it can. It seeks to rest serene and confident of the outcome— when all seems dark. Verestchagin, the great Russian painter, had a glass studio constructed at his home near Paris. It revolved on wheels, moved by a windlass placed, near his easel, and he was thus enabled to paint all day with the sunlight falling — in one direction on his models and drapery. He who has cultivated optimism to be part of the real equipment of character thus turns constantly to the light of truth, love and kindness, and to the growing brightness of the real things of our living. Cheerfulness has done much good; it has been stimulating, kindly and helpful. It causes a cheery message. It often prevents sorrow, worry, deep grief from becoming contagious. This cheerfulness is sweet when natural; brave, strong and sturdy when assumed. Cheerfulness is a sort of germicide of the emotions; it deadens their power to injure others, and soothes the individual. But cheerfulness at its very best and highest is not— optimism. It has never the full, free completeness, finality, depth of— optimism. Cheerfulness may be a blossom of which optimism is the plant, Cheerfulness may be refreshing rills of which optimism is the fountain. Cheerfulness may be a smile on the face; optimism is the smile in the heart when one is fighting hardest. Cheerfulness may be the gentle bubbling voice of a hopeful temperament or a sunny disposition; optimism is the clear, convincing individual tone of the finest depth of our character. Optimism seeks to discover the good points in the acts of those around us, to let their little weaknesses and failings fade into nothingness in the shadow of our charity. It seeks to emphasize their best, to recognize it, to appeal to it, to call it forth and to develop it. A smile, a word of sympathy, a touch of human kindness, a handclasp of fellowship, an unexpected bit of tenderness, courtesy or consideration, will accomplish wonders. It is syndicating sunlight, and that is what real optimism is. It has a cheering, magic, healthful power that no amount of criticism or reproof could accomplish in changing others. True optimism must begin in the — thought. It must be real and living in word, act and atmosphere. It cannot be put on as a veneer from the outside; this is a grand-stand play, not a private performance. Optimism cannot foresee the suffering that may come to us, but we can sturdily determine the effect we will let it have on us. Sorrow comes in no many guises, but we must all "drink our cup." The hardest of all our cups of sorrow comes from the hand that should never be the one to force it to our lips, or it is some cup that gives agony to us because we cannot save another from it. There is the stirrup cup of parting, when we turn our horse's head away from the inn of our hope — never to return. The quassia cup made bitter by that from which it is cut, and more bitter in memory. The loving-cup, when moistened by unmeaning lips and passed to us, may later seem to carry a note of treachery we may not understand aright — till too late. There is the cup of consolation that kindly hands gently press to fevered lips. There is that greatest cup of a final, supreme grief like that given to the great Optimist of Calvary that "could not pass." These are but types of the cups of life. We should drink them — if drink we must — as Socrates bravely drank his poisoned hemlock, valiantly quitting a world unworthy his noble life with them. The man of optimism should be kindest in criticizing others and THE CROWN OF INDIVIDUALITY. 251 never put the hand of harsh judgment on the unhealed wound of another's sorrow. Keenly, vividly, personally conscious of the trials, cares, sorrow, hunger, loneliness and suffering of life, he knows how often he failed and still fought on till at last he found his way— back to the sunlight. The optimist believes courageously that there is a reserve strength in man that brings sudden new inspiration to bear or to conquer, like the unexpected arrival of new food or troops in a siege. The optimist, with new courage in his heart, new determination in his mind, and rebel tears secretly gleaming near his eyes, may rise superior to all unjust assaults. He may accept needless pain without cynicism, may meet betrayal without thought of revenge, may have to battle face to face with cruel disappointment without flinching and yet be victorious in a bettered self, though vanquished in what was dearest — the hope and heaven of his living. Optimism realizes that life is bigger than any single battle. The true soul has no final Waterloo; it has only its latest defeat, with its golden message of why it failed and how it may win in the next conflict. There may be in a very defeat an unwonted victory within our own life — a new revelation of latent power, and a glow and tingle of new courage. This may come to us while the bugle notes of triumph of the enemy still ring in our ears, their flaunting shouts of victory yet telling us of the prize we have lost, and their smiles of conquest hardly faded from their eyes and lips. Many a seeming defeat may force us to retreat to higher grounds, where we may stand in stronger array, reintrenched, reinspirited — to fight harder than ever. With true optimism, we can face poverty without permitting it to harden us, we can meet trial and sorrow and remain calm and unworried, stand bravely when we do not see the way to walk. We can let the glow of optimism so warm our soul that we rema-'n simple, strong, sincere, and unruffled despite any environment. We thus may conquer adverse conditions by making them powerless to harm us — when we are unable to change them. Optimism is the armor of brave souls who fight conditions and never surrender to domination by the darker side of life that dares to daunt them. The optimism that counts does not let the individual— take 252 IMPRO YEMEN T ERA . whatever thoughts may come. It is a power that enables him to a degree to select his own thoughts, to stimulate and encourage those that add to his strength, that are wings to his purpose, that thrill his energy with new consciousness of power. He gains control over those memories that take the smile from his face, strength from his mind and joy from his heart. Optimism inspires a man to reduce all depressing effects to a minimum, to raise resistance to a maximum, to cut off the friction of worry and useless regret. They magnify weakness, minify strength. Optimism has no use for them. We never make conditions easier by telling ourselves how awful our troubles are ; by feeding our griefs for fear they may die a natural death; by intensifying every element of pain. The optimism that is worth anything makes one person smile at troubles that would put another out of the running altogether. It finds joy because it is trained to see the tiniest glint of it as a miner's eyes are quick to recognize the slightest speck of gold in his pan. Optimism sees roses in life because it is looking for them; receives love because it is exhaling it. It forgets its sorrows in counting anew its blessings. It makes life truer, higher and finer for self by making it sunnier for others. This is — the optimism that counts. (The next chapter in this series, "Power of Individual Purpose," will appear in the February, 1911, number of the Era.) Elder Don C. Smith writes, November 30, that he and his companion, Elder August J. Johnson, have labored in New York City for the past six months, holding street meetings and visiting friends. The cold weather has put a stop to these meetings, and they are now canvassing from house to house, and holding cottage meetings with Saints and friends. Much good has been accomplished in the street meetings, and through them much literature has gone into the homes of people who otherwise could not have been reached. The accompanying portraits are those of Don C. Smith, Snowflake, Arizona, and August J. Johnson, Provo, Utah.